View of Bothwell Castle

This view of Bothwell Castle, “beautifully seated on the banks of the Clyde” according to Pennant, was executed when Cordiner was a student at Glasgow’s Foulis Academy of Arts. Aware of the rising interest in Scotland as a terrain of enquiry, the academy actively encouraged its students to focus on local landscapes and townscapes over idealised ones. Cordiner’s view is among the few pictures by Scottish artists to anticipate the proliferation of words and images celebrating Scotland’s landscape in the wake of Pennant’s tours.